


Heaven Can Wait

by blueslove



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam (Voltron) Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Future Fic, M/M, Zine, adashi, thank god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueslove/pseuds/blueslove
Summary: “My dad used to say that, when you die, you’d have the choice to be an angel or a star.” His lips curl faintly. “I used to sit under them and spend hours deciding which one I wanted to be. Tough decision when you’re a kid.”Takashi snorts under his breath. “Did you decide?”Adam’s quiet for a moment, trawling through trapped memories like he’s unboxing the past with a delicate hand. “—A star,” he replies eventually, “I like the idea of lighting the way. Being the next Polaris sounds nice and important. Gives me something to look forward to when I die.”“Nothing to do with being the centre of attention?”>> For the Adashi Zine, Through Space and Time <<
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	Heaven Can Wait

Space has never seemed so far away when Takashi can no longer reach it. It’s maddening knowing what’s out there, past those distant stars, those planets of sparkling crystals and metal moons, beyond the vortical galaxies and to the very depths of the Universe where even time can’t touch him. 

Everything once a stones throw away is part of another Universe; sealed in a chest that can never be reopened. What lay beyond their tiny solar system will remain a mystery for future generations, and all he’s seen—all he’s heard and thought and touched—will be forgotten in matted memory and printed textbooks.

Voltron will lose itself to myth again, and their names will be whispered amongst the stars; bedtime stories for children as the remnants of nightmares.

Takashi can’t stand it.

Years pass and the stars don’t age, not when wrinkles appear in the creases of Takashi’s eyes, nor when his hair becomes crisper, whiter; when his tongue loses its sharpness and his eyesight worsens. Each night he sits under the stars like a hopeless Romeo and wishes, watches, and waits.  _ What he wouldn’t do for a second chance. _

Life has been far too kind to him and far too cruel, has snatched and replaced in an unending cycle. But the need to travel inside a space shuttle, to feel the purr of metal beneath his fingertips, for the thrill of battle and the tears of laughter and the fights and glory—

Life can give him love, can find him a rapt routine back on Earth, but it can’t give him back what he wants most of all.

“Figured I’d find you here.”

Takashi no longer startles at the voice that finds him on these nights. They’re too old to pretend, to do anything more than watch these stars and reminisce, and when Adam sits by him with a low sigh, he says nothing.  Time hasn’t been kind to Adam either. Though he’s younger than Takashi, he too is its victim; there are deep creases in his forehead, his joints ache and crack, and now all they can do is watch and wish and wait together.

“I used to think those stars were people.” 

Takashi looks to Adam, wondering where his thoughts strayed to say something like that unprompted. Adam is a private person and, though Takashi has collected all the puzzle pieces, the ones in the middle are transparent. Adam never talks  _ too _ much. 

Adam’s still watching the glittering sky, enthralled by the diamonds sparkling in an everlasting ravine, and his eyes light faintly with each dot above the full moon.  “My dad used to say that, when you die, you’d have the choice to be an angel or a star.” His lips curl faintly. “I used to sit under them and spend hours deciding which one I wanted to be. Tough decision when you’re a kid.”

Takashi snorts under his breath. “Did you decide?”

Adam’s quiet for a moment, trawling through trapped memories like he’s unboxing the past with a delicate hand. “—A star,” he replies eventually, “I like the idea of lighting the way. Being the next Polaris sounds nice and important. Gives me something to look forward to when I die.”

“Nothing to do with being the centre of attention?”

Adam slaps his arm—the metallic one—and curses when he does more damage to himself than Takashi. 

Their laughter fills the silence splitting the night, then lapses until their thoughts are echoing amongst the rooftops. Synthetic light is nonexistent here—the only requirement Takashi had when they were deciding on a house—where the moon is a spotlight over the tops of tall trees. There’s something romantic about it, like the lonely moon knew of Takashi’s sorrow. Adam must think the same as he settles his cheek on Takashi’s shoulder.

Once, Takashi would have hesitated, would have awkwardly wrapped an arm around him and patted his shoulder like an inexperienced teenager, but that’s long passed. His cheek finds Adam’s hair—the soft smell of coconut from the shampoo he swears he doesn’t use—and for the first time that night, he lets his eyes slide shut.

“I think I’d be a star too,” he says thoughtlessly, mind wandering to the possibilities, to the pros and cons of spreading light for weary travellers and hanging constellations in the sky. “Somewhere out there in the Universe. Maybe by one of my favourite galaxies.”

He feels Adam’s smile go slack against his skin. “Only you could have favourite galaxies.”

Something deep and dark wedges itself in Takashi’s throat. He knows what he means. He knows where Adam’s mind will go and where it will settle, distant memories from thirty years ago when he was left to watch and wish and wait alone.  They’ve talked about it, they’ve fought about it, they’ve cried about it even after the jewelled ring settled on Takashi’s finger, but some things were irreparable. In other cases, unforgivable.

“—Yeah.” He has nothing to say after his well of apologies ran dry. This will always be the biggest rift between them. “I wonder if they’re still there.”

Maybe Adam decides that too because, instead of pulling away, he pushes closer and reaches for the hand made of flesh and blood. Their rings click when their fingers lock, the jewels encrusted like tiny stars glittering alongside each other in perfect unison. 

“Probably,” Adam answers, but he sounds miles away. “Who knows, maybe they give that option. They’ll have a realtor show you around for you to pick your favourite spot.”

Takashi laughs. “Useful. Do you think you’re allowed to move if you get bored of one place?”

“You’re pushing the boundaries now,” he replies easily, full of sarcastic charm, “But whatever, right? Maybe if you wish hard enough you can.”

“Maybe.”

They fall into silence again, but it’s easier this time. Takashi’s hand finds Adam’s hip to rub small circles into his jeans whilst Adam traces the mold of Takashi’s metal arm. There’s a morbid fascination with it, with the mechanisms and engineering that Adam’s Garrison mind can’t quite escape.

Then, all of a sudden, Adam moves and rummages in the pocket of his jacket before presenting Takashi with a small, wrapped box.  “Here.”

He offers no further explanation, even when Takashi’s eyebrow arches and he shifts to unwrap it with gentle fingers. Adam’s always had a habit of wrapping things too tightly with too much sellotape and, after a few minutes of quiet giggling, he unearths a tiny black box no bigger than his palm, a button on top.

His curiosity goes to press it, but Adam’s hand steadies his arm.  “Not now—it won’t work. It’s too bright out here.”

“Too  _ bright?”  _ Takashi can barely make out Adam’s face in the darkness, the glasses slipping down his nose; the moonlight is sweet and soft but not enough. Takashi relies solely on his touch, his familiarity with the rooftop and the corroded path back to the hatch at the top. It’s dangerous, but worth the risk.

“Come on.” When Adam takes his hand their rings click again and Takashi’s enamoured by it. To know that someone shares his heart—his mind, his soul, his life—is romantic in a way the moon can’t give him. Like he’s torn between Juliet and Rosaline.

Adam leads him back across the roof and down the hatch, and doesn’t let go until he’s pushing Takashi onto the bed. Takashi can see the glint of excitement behind those glasses—he’s seen it before, too many times—and when he takes the box, Takashi can do nothing but grin.

There’s eagerness in those old bones and, even though Adam’s joints creak as he kneels on the floor and positions the box, his enthusiasm wins and spreads like fairy dust. He looks twenty again when he decides on the angle, switching that firm gaze to Takashi perching on the edge of their bed, eyes sharper than his wit.  “Eyes closed.”

He closes them. Silence follows an inky black as the light shuts off with a click and the world behind his eyelids plunges into everlasting darkness. It’s strangely peaceful—to sit here so comfortably with his feet planted firmly—but foreign, and the thought buries itself in his heart until—

The darkness bursts into colour with a mechanical whirl. Blues and golds melt to orange and red, swirling patterns and shimmering rainbows. The vividness of each colour has him forgetting to open his eyes until Adam whispers “you can look”.  And, when he does, the last coherent thought bleeds into the dark and disappears.

Colour, colour everywhere—a maelstrom of glittering nebulae between twinkles like fairy lights in clouds of mist. Except it isn’t mist, Takashi realises, but  _ galaxies _ , hundreds of thousands of galaxies swimming through the abyss, billions of shining stars weaving each arm. Meteors like pinpricks soar through space to evaporate when they hit the wall in a scatter of pixelated light, and everywhere—absolutely everywhere— _ life _ .

He’s speechless. Each word cements itself to his tongue or falls into space to mix incoherently with the stormy clouds of gas, because this is unfathomable. It murmurs to Takashi of distant memories, back in a castle watching five lions zoom around five pilots, and even when he lifts a trembling hand—the one made of his own skin—the light doesn’t dissolve. It sits on his palm as though captured within the confines of his fist.

“What do you think?”

Takashi’s head turns and sees Adam like he’s never seen him before. He’s barely a foot away, watching the stars as if it has them both wishing for the planets. He looks beautiful: each speckle of light swimming in his eyes in deep pools of honey, kaleidoscopic mosaics on his skin, lips parted and hands loose at his sides like he’s unable to think reasonably.

It shouldn’t be real, yet here it is, trapped in this little bedroom like a secret.

“I—” Takashi’s voice catches, and he swallows before trying again. “I—it’s— _h_ _ ow?  _ Why?”

Adam’s lips tilt and he finally meets Takashi’s eyes through the stream of light. He hesitates, but comes closer to run gentle fingers through Takashi’s hair, like he can’t believe how stark and ghostly it is. What does he see that Takashi can’t in a mirror, in his phone screen?

“Newest technology out,” he mumbles, hand sliding down to cup the back of Takashi’s neck. This close, he can see every dark speckle of Adam’s eyes—the rise and fall of yellow and brown, glazed with syrupy sweetness. “Courtesy of one young Holt.”

Takashi smiles. “Pidge.”

“She said you’d recognise the technology.” He lets go, but Takashi catches his fingers midair and laces them together, marvelling at the way Adam’s breath catches on a syllable when he kisses the pads of his fingers. “Do you?”

“Absolutely.” He kisses up to his knuckles. “It’s Altean, or a damn good copy of it.”

Adam doesn’t answer, but Takashi can feel his eyes as he works his way to his wrist, his elbow, his shoulder and chin, and finally finds his mark against his lips. It’s barely a breath, a breeze against the curve of Adam’s grin when he pulls away and rests their foreheads together. 

“I got bored of seeing you pining,” Adam says, more snaps, but it’s nothing but weak defence. Even after all these years in each other’s arms, he still has trouble looking Takashi in the eye when he kisses him, and it’s a quality that Takashi wouldn’t dream of changing. 

“It’s appreciated. Very appreciated.”

It’s such a small thing compared to what he’s seen, what he’s touched; so tiny and insignificant unlike the width and breadth of space. But, even as a prototype, even when it became a carbon copy, it’s  _ enough _ . For the first time since he came back to Earth and resigned himself to a life on the ground instead of weaving stars, the hole in his heart doesn’t feel so empty anymore.

For the first time, he feels like he’s truly home.

Adam breaks away with a mutter—nearly kicking the box (the projector, Takashi realises)—and turns to the stars instead. Takashi wraps his arms around his waist and settles his chin on his shoulder to watch them burst into sparkling light alongside him.

Adam voices his approval through a disgruntled sound and says, “Now you can show me where your star will be.”

Takashi’s laugh explodes into a thousand colours. “Heaven can wait.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's nearly been a year since I wrote this, and it's still one of my favourites that I've ever written. And also the writing style I'll probably never replicate LOL
> 
> I couldn't find it in me to watch the last season of Voltron (or is it two seasons?) so I haven't actually met Adam, BUT I REALLY HOPE HE'S IN CHARACTER.
> 
> Here's to one of the only times I've ever written Voltron!
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr/Twitter @charlsteas!


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